The possible postponement of elections due to terrorist attack or
other emergency is addressed in yet another new CRS report (the
third to address the subject, by our count).

"Due to the possibility of an emergency or disaster, including the
threat of a terrorist attack, occurring immediately before or
during a scheduled election, some states have enacted statutes
providing for the temporary postponement of elections in their
respective states, precincts, districts, or counties. This Report
summarizes seven state statutes that provide a mechanism for the
postponement of certain elections."

"The electric utility system is vulnerable to outages caused by a
range of activities, including system operator errors, weather
related damage, and terrorist attacks," according to another new
Congressional Research Service report.

"This report provides a description of initiatives within the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Departments of Energy,
Homeland Security, and Defense to protect the physical transmission
infrastructure."

See "Government Activities to Protect the Electric Grid," October
20, 2004:

Earlier this month, the Senate adopted a resolution that will modify
the organization and procedures governing intelligence oversight.

Among the dozen or so changes, the eight-year term limit on
intelligence committee membership is eliminated, and the size of
the committee is reduced from 17 to 15. The resolution also amends
slightly the procedures for publicly disclosing classified
information (which have never been used).

The provisions of the resolution are summarized by the CRS in
"S.Res. 445: Senate Committee Reorganization for Homeland Security
and Intelligence Matters":

The total number of patent secrecy orders imposed on patent
applications under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 rose slightly
last year to 4,885. Most originated in previous years. There were
124 new secrecy orders added during the year.

The Invention Secrecy Act is one of two laws under which the
government asserts a right to restrict the disclosure of privately
generated information on national security grounds. (The other law
is the Atomic Energy Act.) The constitutionality of this practice
has never been tested.

While the large majority of secret inventions are produced by
government contractors or with government funding, some are not.
Secrecy orders imposed on private individuals or businesses who
developed their idea without government sponsorship are termed
"John Doe" secrecy orders.

Last year, there were 61 new "John Doe" secrecy orders, up from 51
the year before.

A tabulation of the latest statistics on invention secrecy, released
under the Freedom of Information Act, is here:

In its FOIA response, the US Patent and Trademark Office observed
that the Federation of American Scientists web site makes invention
secrecy information available and suggested helpfully if
incongruously that "you may wish to consult that site" in the
future.